Falcons basketball's Ms. Everything

Sheahin family's latest athlete is Good Counsel's complete player

Senior Katie Sheahin leads the Good Counsel girls basketball team in four major statistical categories.

For most of this decade, the Sheahin family has been synonymous with successful high school sports in the Olney area. The latest sibling to carry on the tradition is Good Counsel High senior Katie Sheahin.

Her older brothers, Bobby and Chris, played football at Sherwood High. Taking the mantle since Chris' graduation in 2005, Katie is a 5-foot-9 combination guard and perhaps the Falcons' top basketball player this winter.

"My brothers are the ones who got me into basketball," Katie Sheahin said. "Backstreet ball every day since I was little. I'd come home with bloody noses all the time, but I definitely give them high props, and my mom and dad too."

Sheahin will follow her two older brothers into college sports. In December, she signed a National Letter of Intent to play on scholarship at Loyola College in Baltimore.

Bobby played quarterback at Sherwood, leading the Warriors to the 2002 Class 4A state final. He threw for 1,059 yards and nine touchdowns as a senior that fall. After stints at West Virginia University and University of Maryland, he is currently at Salisbury University, where he saw action in five games last season.

Chris caught a county-best 61 passes for 1,139 yards and 10 scores as a senior in 2004. He originally committed to the Naval Academy, briefly joined his brother at Maryland and is now playing at Towson.

Now it's little sister's turn. While her brothers made their mark on offense, Georgetown Visitation coach Mike McCarthy calls Katie Sheahin "one of the best all-around players in the area."

"She plays both ends of the floor and she's one of the top defensive guards I've ever played against," McCarthy said. "She anticipates and gets in the passing lanes. … She can score and she makes everybody else on their team better."

Through Friday's 65-49 win against Elizabeth Seton, Sheahin was producing team highs in points (14.7), assists (3.4), blocks (2.3) and steals (4) per game, and was second in rebounds (5.7). She also frequently handles the ball, and always lines up against each opponent's best backcourt player; and normally shuts her down.

She has led Good Counsel to a 16-3 overall record and a 9-2 mark in Washington Catholic Athletic Conference play so far this season, good enough for first place with Seton (15-2, 8-2 WCAC), placing a distant second now with the Falcons earning a two-game sweep against the Roadrunners.

"When you think about Katie, you really want to call her the basketball player's version of a blue-collar worker because she does do everything and how hard she works," Falcons coach Tom Splaine said. "Obviously, she's important to our team. She works harder than anybody in practice and that's one of things that has gotten her to the level she is [and] she leads by example."

Sheahin's best work comes on the defensive end, according to Splaine, McCarthy and Holy Cross coach Russell Davis. Davis and McCarthy both specifically cited her anticipation.

"She's so important up front," Splaine said. "If it's not a steal, it's a deflection. If it's not a deflection, she's forcing the pass to go a little higher and then that allows our player to get there a little quicker on a cut. It's all those little things."